The Glory of Being Loved and Known by God

My finger hovered over the screen as I read and scrolled, the words landing like lead in my stomach. A friend had simply reported the facts: “Try this!” she chirped, her heart pure, meaning only to encourage. “It worked for me! I’ve had 300 responses in just a few hours!”

I darkened the screen with a sniff and a tiny eye roll (just for good measure), because three-digit responses just don’t happen in my world. In fact, the math of social media leaves me with more questions than solutions, and the presiding symbol in the equation always feels like “less than.” When I fall into the trap of comparing myself to the gifted, the scintillating, and the accomplished, I can be sure that the spirit of scarcity won’t be far behind, sucking dry my confidence and leaving my faith parched and brittle.

“Less than” – the phrase clamors for my attention even through the darkened screen, but I will not give it entry to my soul. I will fight the lie with reassurance tucked into Paul’s letter to believers in Corinth. Whom we know, how much we know, or how well we are known by the-names-that-matter is all secondary to this one truth:

“But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.” (I Corinthians 8:3 ESV)

Hear the Word of the Lord, O my soul!

I may not be “known” by thousands, but I am known by God, and this is the most compelling feature on my resumé. God’s face is turned toward me with joy and welcome – with a love that is present and powerful. While I’m all the time imagining a closed door and cramped quarters, God has envisioned and provided for wide-open access, and my feet are standing on the place of grace.

In his classic essay “The Weight of Glory,” C.S. Lewis describes this “good report with God” using one word: “Glory!” The promise of acceptance into the heart of God comes with His approval, and Lewis concludes: “How God thinks of us is not only more important but infinitely more important. (38) To please God . . . to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness . . . to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.” (39)

So it is. God’s ponderous glory is a weighty counterbalance to past lies or present disappointments. And when I try to do life according to any other equation, I’m making deposits to an account that is continually overdrawn.

Responding to the Weight of Glory

Because of weighty truth, I am no longer the girl who feared scarcity, inspired by a worried President Ford wearing his sweater on T.V. and telling us to turn down our thermostats because there most certainly was not enough oil to fuel our future. God’s delight in me has filled up the empty spaces in my heart that corresponded to the empty spaces in my growing-up refrigerator — the ones that stood in stark contrast with the steady supply of vodka bottles hidden in the trunk of the ’72 Plymouth.

It’s likely your own road map shows a few desolate places in the itinerary up to this point, a record of the journey through days when security and abundance seemed to be a thousand miles away as you slogged through debt or disappointment or confusion. Whatever its origin, the only lasting corrective to a less-than mentality is an abundant approval that will endure. The only potent antidote to its poison is the weighty security of a welcome from the One with whom your heart is absolutely safe.

Therefore, with my longing to be acknowledged lavishly met, I receive (with gratitude!) the gift of self-forgetfulness. The script of my life can switch from, “Here I am!” to “There YOU are!” as I celebrate the accomplishments of my sisters in Christ and come alongside them to help them lean into their unique callings. Best of all, liberated from the need to be center stage, I can lift my eyes and be astounded by the glory of God where everything begins and ends.